Court: Plainfield man didn’t get fair robbery trial

PLAINFIELD – A city man who was sentenced in 2011 to nine years in prison for minor theft and simple assault charges will get a second chance to defend himself after a state court this week ruled that he was denied a fair trial.

Anthony W. Coles — aka Anthony J. Johnson and William A. Coles — was charged in April 2010 with second-degree robbery and third-degree aggravated assault of a drug-dealer outside a fried chicken restaurant.

A Union County jury, however, acquitted Coles of those serious charges and found him guilty of the lower offenses only.

Coles appealed, saying the prison term, which made him ineligible for parole for more than four years, was excessive and that police bungled the investigation by failing to get a copy of the restaurant’s surveillance tape, which Coles argued would have helped his defense.

The appellate panel, however, focused on what a Plainfield police officer was allowed to say on the stand and what a Union County prosecutor was allowed to tell the jury as the basis for them overturning the conviction.

The appellate panel said that the trial judge, sitting in Elizabeth, should not have allowed a police officer to give his opinion that the lost security tape would have helped the prosecution, or that he believed the prosecution’s case was “solid.”

Police are not supposed to testify on their opinions — only relay facts based on first-hand knowledge, the appellate panel said. Determining whether the prosecution had a “solid case” is the job of the jury, not of the police.

Prosecutors also are not allowed to draw a jury’s attention to a defendant’s presence at trial. In this trial, however, the prosecutor pointed to Coles’ testimony on the stand in order to argue that his testimony was a fabrication and that he is a “liar.”

“Given the manifest impropriety, we have a significant doubt that defendant received a fair trial,” the appellate panel said in an opinion released Wednesday.

The appellate panel agreed with the trial judge that there was no evidence of police acting in bad faith when they lost the surveillance tape.